A member of the PDP Presidential Council and the Director of the Campaign’s CUPP/Inter-party Directorate, Sen. Ben Obi has described as insensitive and height of mischief, Vice President Yemi Osibanjo’s comment on 2023 elections.
VP Osinbajo Osibanjo had in Ibadan recently postulated that President Muhammadu Buhari will hand over the presidency to the south west after completing his two terms of eight years in office.
Obi in a statement in Abuja, berated Osinbajo for asserting that the presidency will revert to the South West after Buhari in 2023, saying “the PDP will win the 2019 presidential election in which case Osinbajo’s reckless and morally outrageous scenario will never come to pass.”
He said: “The mere thought of making that insensitive declaration after Obasanjo’s eight-year presidential tenure and Osinbajo’s four years as vice president, in the context in which power is yet to rotate to the South East, is the height of political intolerance and mischief-making”.
Obi directed Osinbajo to re-learn the historical circumstances that threw up the Obasanjo Vs Falae presidential contest in 1999 and why the Late Dr Alex Ekwueme sacrificed so much to ensure that Obasanjo won that election.
EPF reacts
Also reacting, the Eastern Peoples Front, EPF, described the statements coming from the top echelon of the South West as “vexatious, provocative and an affront to the people of the South East whose turn it is to produce the president of Nigeria when power returns to the south.”
Elder Ken Emechebe, National Coordinator & Leader, EPF said: “We are not unaware of what this insidious campaign is all about. It is a devious blackmail aimed at arm-twisting the Igbo into voting for Buhari. But the plot is dead on arrival.
“Osinbajo’s revelation that Buhari promised to hand over power to the Yoruba is instructive . The implication is that any Igbo vote for Buhari is a wasted vote.
“We want to make it clear to the day dreamers from the south west that the political destiny of the Igbo does not rest in the hands one man or any individual, be it Buhari or any other person. The Igbo know what is best for them and will make their choice without intimidation or blackmail from the Osinbajos and Fasholas of the South West.
“As a matter of fact, the Vice President’s statement is immature and impolitic. It gives Buhari away as a Nigerian president who does not mean well for the Igbo. If that is the message Osinbajo set out to send to the Igbo, then he has struck the wrong chord.
“The right of the Igbo to the presidency of Nigeria in 2023 or any other time for that matter remains sacrosanct. No amount of blackmail can divert our attention from this quest. We remain resolute in our bid for the presidency in 2023.”
“We therefore invite all Igbo patriots to be part of the movement for the realization of this objective.”
He further charged Osinbajo “to retrieve his lost moral compass with regard to this issue and with regard to his Tradermoni vote-buying antics which, as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, a Professor and a Pastor, he knows to be an unethical, corrupt and reprehensible electoral manoeuvre”.
The high ranking PDP chieftain who was the immediate past National Secretary of its Caretaker Committee, further revealed that the “PDP will blend the season of love, grace, giving and sharing that Christmas is known for, irrespective of faith and creed, with robust outreach programmes on consultative meetings, mass mobilization, stakeholder sensitization and voter awareness creation in all the states, local government areas and wards across the country”.
Sen Obi averred that the “PDP will be working closely with local communities and their grassroots based organizations for a full buy-in into its vision of getting Nigeria to work again, the first step of which will entail taking our country back and re-directing it on the path of peace, security, prosperity and life abundant for all our people after its resounding victory in the 16 February, 2019 presidential election”.
